


Francine

by anonymousdragon



Series: West Family Reunion [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:02:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousdragon/pseuds/anonymousdragon
Summary: That AU where Francine West is Leonard Snart's Aunt, part 1--> Some background on Francine





	Francine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nirejseki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/gifts), [oneiriad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneiriad/gifts).



Francine and her sister Cheryl both married cops. Later, Francine often thought that if she had known Joe’s career aspirations before she fell in love with him, she wouldn’t have. She had seen the way her sister—closer in heart than they were in looks—had turned quiet and domestic when she had always been a spitfire. And with the way the police worked in Central, he might as well have been a family man as wear a badge. She had to remind herself that Joe was nothing like Lewis, especially when some of her sister’s excuses felt a little too close to home.

Francine had loved her nephew the moment she saw him. She had skipped school to be there at the hospital with her sister, and was surprised to see Lewis there, in a good mood for once. Cheryl was tired but proud and Francine remembered being amazed at just how small babies actually were.

Sure, her mom had been pissed she skipped school, but she had been doing that more often lately, cutting class to run errands for one of the groceries down the block. A little extra money never hurt. It was on those trips that she first met Tony Delgado who had sold her that little bag. Cheryl was concerned about Frannie’s recent mood swings, but Cheryl had gone and gotten married and pregnant too soon for her to notice Frannie’s lethargy.

Francine saw Cheryl and her young son Leo rarely, though she noticed it little at the time—caught in the clouds of work, night classes, and her addiction.

It was only when the rapping of a child’s fist on her apartment door brought news of her sister’s death that she found her way into rehab for the first time. That summer, with her nephew staying with his grandfather—not her father, the other one—and Lewis in jail over some botched emerald heist, she made resolutions that she swore on her sister’s grave to keep.

Two years later found Francine in one of Central Cities’ more scenic parks, part of the mayor’s revitalization project, the remains of a picnic lunch around her and her fiancé sitting next to her.

“I have a nephew…” Francine began, her hand tracing patterns on Joe’s bare forearms. The sun warmed picnic blanket beneath them keeps her legs off the scratchy grass, though it does little to deter the ants creeping their way toward the remains of their lunch.

“Hmmm?” Joe responded. He seemed distracted. He watched her hands, studying the paths her fingers took across his arms. Her ring sparkled in the sunlight, still new on her hand.

“His name’s Leonard. He’s nine but he’ll tell you he’s almost ten if you ask.” She couldn’t restrain the smile in her voice as she talked about him.

“Sounds like a good kid. What, do you want him to be the ring bearer?” He leaned over to pull her up into a kiss.

Francine swatted at him with a paper napkin. “Listen.” She insisted. “I’d like him to come live with us.”

Joe blinked and sat back. “That’s a pretty serious request. Is there something wrong? Do you want me to get CPS to look into his home? I have a couple of contacts there.”

“They have looked.” She said. “Nothing’s come of it.”

“What’s his last name? I’ll look the case-file up when I go back to the precinct.”

“Snart.”

“ _Snart?_ As in Lewis Snart, the best undercover guy on the force? Frankie, even if something’s going on, that guy’s not going to take the fall for it.”

“I’m not asking for anything to happen to Lewis,” She lowered her voice, “much as he deserves it, I just want Leo out of that house and to come live with us.”

Joe looked at her somberly. “I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t want to get your hopes up. Snart’s a popular guy.”

“Just do what you can. That’s all I’m asking Joe.” She said, but her thoughts were filled with remembrances of what Cheryl had said: cops always stuck by their own.

It was four more years, of being domestic with Joe, sneaking visits off to see Len when she could—meeting his kid sister who she liked at first for Len’s sake and later on her own merits—and having Iris. Then the whole bank heist gone wrong happened and next she knew she was visiting her nephew in the juvenile detention center with a toddler at her hip. They talked—about Lisa and Iris mostly—and at the end of the first visit, Francine asked if he wanted her to bring Lisa to visit, but they both knew the likelihood of Lewis approving it and Lisa’s mother had wanted nothing to do with her predecessor’s family.

Officer Harrigan told Joe about the visit though, and she and Iris came back to the house to a pacing Joe and soup burning on the stove.

She walked in holding Iris with one arm, and the large tote she used as both her purse and Iris’ diaper bag in the other.

“I don’t want Iris going to such places. It could scar her psyche.” Joe said, his voice tight. He faced the stove, as though waiting to compose himself.

“I’m not going to leave our daughter home alone,” Francine protested.

“Then you don’t have to go either.” He turned to look at her, as though his face would convince her to back down.

Francine set Iris down in her high chair. “I’m not abandoning the boy. Did you know, he got shivved on his first day and his father has never been by to visit once?”

“They’re not a part of our life, Frankie. Or at least not part of Iris’s.”

Francine glared at him and grabbed up a plate. With something in her hands she would be less tempted to lash out at Joe with more than words. “If you had let me, I would have had my nephew living with us from the day we moved in together. I tried, when my sister died, but the courts weren’t interested in giving him to me when I was single, but you’ve refused to help from the day I brought the idea up!” She was just warming to her subject, passion fuzzing the details of long ago discussions, when Iris began to cry.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Joe complained as he tossed the soup spoon down and went to their daughter.

Francine pursed her lips, biting back more words. She longed to continue lecturing him, longed to yell until he agreed to help. She didn’t want her nephew continuing on his current path, but saw no way to stop it.

Their arguments continued from there. It wasn’t just about her nephew, but about her associates, former and current drug addicts, and all living in the wrong part of Central. She didn’t like most of his fellow officers; sure Singh was nice enough, and he and Joe had bonded over not being part of the old white crony crew, but Joe spent so much time ensuring his promotion away from being a beat cop would happen that he was just a regular brown noser. She found herself looking to pills to calm her nerves, keep her steady enough to be the domestic housewife Joe had married, pills that would dull her anger. It was easy to abuse them when Joe just wouldn’t listen. Each argument was bound to give her a headache and she was quick to tell him that her new pills were migraine medication, though he never seemed inclined to ask.

It was almost another four years—four years where she had to make concentrated efforts to see her nephew, meeting him in playgrounds and public parks, all in his neck of Central, where they’d set their respective charges playing and she’d try to ask him about careers or school (though she knew he had stopped going regularly after his first stint in juvie.)

Four years of Len—and he was definitely Len now—offering her spoils of his thievery that she tried to insist she didn’t need (but ended up using to fuel her drug habit) and Francine giving him home cooked meals, and gifts and advice for Lisa in return.

But four years before Joe realized that her migraine medicine was anything but. She took one too many—having had the letter from Lisa about what had happened to her and the fall Len had orchestrated for Lewis to take. There was a post script from Len about Family activity and she just did not know what to do, so she reached for the pills like for fragments of a fallen glass, and found herself waking in a soft blue room, on a soft, stiff bed.

“Mrs. West, you overdosed.” A blurred figure which coalesced into a scrub clad nurse told her. “Your daughter found you and called your husband. You are currently at Central Memorial Hospital. We’re keeping you overnight and will talk about options in the morning.”

“Joe,” She said. “Is he here?”

“Not right now. He went home with your daughter.”

“Iris! Oh my baby!”

“And, Mrs. West,” The nurse sounded tentative. “We took a blood test, there’s a strong indication that you’re pregnant.”

She allowed Joe to bring her to check her into rehab the following day. She stayed there for a week, and heard nothing from Joe in that time. So she called Len, knowing he had found his way out of Lewis’ house and asked for help.

 

An anonymous blue car pulled up in front of the rehab center and two young men, neither older than twenty, and a young girl got out. They signed in with the receptionist and an orderly led them to a different room. They settled in to wait, the girl kicking her heels as she sat on the plastic chair.

Francine talked with her doctor, signed a form or two, thanked them for their help and went out to the visitors’ room.

“Aunt Frannie!” the girl leapt to her feet and ran to the woman. She let the girl engulf her in a hug and looked over her at her nephew. He and the other man had approached at a more sedate pace.

“We got options for you, Aunt Fran.” He said, his hands determinedly thrust in his jeans’ pockets. “You want to disappear, we can make it happen.”

“I don’t know if I can leave Iris.” She said.

Len looked at Mick. Mick nodded. Len turned back to Francine. “It’d be tricky, but we could get her too. You’d probably have to leave the country. It would take longer, and kidnapping’s a serious charge.”

“Joe wouldn’t let her go.” Francine said, thinking out loud. And the doctor had told her she was pregnant.

“Your choice, Aunt Fran. We can get you squared up in Keystone by the end of today, or we can put you on a train bound for New York, or National, or anywhere really. We have three ids for you to choose from and jobs available for each of them in each city. Keystone’s got a safe house we would gladly turn over to you, but the others you’d be stuck with shelters until you can find an apartment.”

“Keystone. It’ll have to be Keystone.”

“We’ll drive you. You good to leave?”

It was an awkward car ride. Mick drove, and Len sat in the back with Lisa, giving her the courtesy of the front seat. She thinks she would have preferred to be with Lisa. The girl would have distracted her from wondering if she was making the right choice.

It was a month later when Len and Mick stopped by again. A month of working reception at a somewhat sleazy car dealership and looking for affordable prenatal care in the area.

“He’s not looking for you,” Len told her, the three of them sitting around the kitchen table, mugs of slowly cooling hot chocolate sitting in front of each. Len was the only one who had had any of it. “Found out he’s told his neighbors you died.”

“Did he tell Iris that?” She asked.

Len nodded. “Near as I could tell.”

Francine breathed in long and slow through her nose. “Guess I’m a Keystone resident now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by various tumblr discussions I saw on both nirejeski & oneiriad's tumblrs


End file.
